Phonecall Sujeylin

As usual, the messages I get from Nicaragua are contradictory. Martha, my producer, went to visit the home where Sujeylin lives twice now and sent me a long report about how she (and others) thinks she’s pregnant, about how badly she treats Karla sometimes, leaving her to sleep on the floor or not cleaning her, and about how her in-laws think she’s hanging out with some other man. Obviously, this is all second-hand information I refuse to judge about but it’s both interesting and not surprising.

So when I spoke to Sujeylin this past Friday, she doesn’t seem to think she’s pregnant and said her in-laws are making up stories because they don’t like her. Her relationship with boyfriend Felix is not going well and she might consider leaving as long as she knows where to go, bt there’s no one else in her life. Besides Juan Carlos, whom she goes to see every day so he van be with their daughter Karla. He’s out of jail by the way, and I was able to speak to him as well.

I have mentioned this before but this blog (not the film, because it will have a different focus) is more and more starting to read like a soap opera script, even knowing I am toning down some of the information I am receiving. On the one hand it makes me feel like a voyeur, and I don’t consider it very interesting but on the other it is the reality. And documentary making is about reality in some shape or form.

Other news is that Sujeylin is going to a course every morning to learn how to sow, and she hopes that somehow she will be able to make a living with that. Let’s hope it works out and that she’s able to provide that positive twist in her life – and that of her daughters – she so much longs for (as I do for her and the film).

As I am now used to, she always asks me for some favor when we speak. This time she wanted a box of Pollo Campero (equivalent of Kentucky Fried Chicken) and a phone with a camera so she can take pictures of Karla. Strange combination. We don’t usually honor the “luxury” requests, and she knows that, but nevertheless she asks.